On the occasion of the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation, Mount Tabor Ecumenical Centre for Art and Spirituality together with the Institut Supérieur de Théologie et Art of the Institut Catholique de Paris, the Faculté de Théologie Protestante of the Université de Strasbourg, the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence) and the Facoltà Teologica dell’Italia Centrale, the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and the Community of Jesus present an international symposium with sessions in Paris, Strasbourg, Florence, New Haven (CT) and Orleans (MA).

The symposium will discuss Catholic and Protestant approaches to art through history, theology, liturgical contexts, and post-Vatican II developments, with specific references to areas of exchange between American and European viewpoints.

The final weekend of the Symposium in October 2017, in Orleans MA, will be the culmination of the exploration of sacred arts and ecumenism: a celebration of “The Word in Color and Form” focusing on the creativity behind and expression in both the visual and performing arts. The Community of Jesus will host live workshop demonstrations of mosaic, fresco, and Gregorian chant; lecture presentations of papers and panel discussions; exhibits of contemporary sacred art by artists Susan Kanaga and Filippo Rossi; liturgies of Compline, Choral Evensong, and Eucharist; and a fully staged presentation of Vaughan Williams’ opera, The Pilgrim’s Progress, performed by the internationally-acclaimed choir Gloriæ Dei Cantores, in the Church of the Transfiguration.

Among the contexts of Christian experience open to the arts and music, today as in the past, monastic life has particular importance, its contemplative dimension predisposing the free creative act in which the Holy Spirit is present.

The final session of our symposium thus unfolds in an ecumenical monastery in the Benedictine tradition, the Community of Jesus, known for its commitment to sacred music and art. The session combines academic papers with examples of contemporary artistic production and musical performance, within the typically monastic framework of solemn liturgical celebration.

At the Community of Jesus’s monastery there is a second edition of the collaborative ecumenical exhibition inaugurated in the month of May in Florence, with works by Susan Kanaga, American and Protestant (a member of the Community of Jesus), and by Filippo Rossi, Italian and Roman Catholic

Where:

Monastery and Church of the Transfiguration
Community of Jesus
5 Bay View Drive
Orleans, Massachusetts 02653

The myriad array of religious traditions in North America has given rise to an equally diverse range of artistic expressions. These are informed by practices shaped by individuals and communities past and present, often calling notions of normativity, canon, and authority into question. This Yale session of our symposium lays out a series of case studies that demonstrate a range of these practices, both within and without specific liturgical contexts.

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